Bird Feeding, Spoilt For Choice.

Rob is also the sole UK agent for Witte Molen products. One of the best sellers in this company's extensive range is Wimo Moist Eggfood, "a complimentary food enjoyed by all seed-eating birds and containing the correct amount of vitamins, minerals and essential amino and fatty acids necessary to keep birds in good health". It's made of light, easily digestible egg products, bakery items and various seeds.

Another best seller is Witte Molen Softfood With Fruit, described as a good all-round food for insectivorous and fruit-eating birds, like thrushes, turacos, toucans, green magpies, birds of paradise and jays. "This balanced diet has a uniquely low iron content of less than 70 ppm (parts per million) and is enriched with berries and pieces of papaya, pineapple, figs and apricots. It also contains honey, brewers' yeast and Vitamin c." Although Rob supplies a wide range of customers, from. specialist individual breeders to zoological establishments, his biggest market is probably enthusiastswho have experienced difficulty in obtaining quality food locally.

"It amazes me, the wide range of birds being kept nowadays. During the past three months, for example, I've sold a tonne of lorikeet nectar! I never realised there were so many lorikeets in the UK. I think there are fewer specialists like me around, so I'm selling more of the niche foods."

Supply and demand.
ONE of the UK's biggest suppliers, if not the biggest mail order bird food company, is Haith's of Cleethorpes, which sells not only avicultural and wild bird food but also fishing bait. Founded in the late 1940s, Haith's makes between 500 and 600 separate products, of which 100 to 150 are avicultural. "We supply a basic range of long-established seed mixtures for canaries and budgerigars, as well as specialist foods," says marketing director Simon King. "Canary foods are particularly strong sellers. We've also sold more parrot food recently - sophisticated mixtures, such as Parrot Sun Lo, for owners who want foods containing fewer sunflower seeds and more fruit.

"We have quite distinct customer groups. Some people keep canaries, others budgies or parrots. There is very little crossover among our clients. "They tend to stick with what  they've always kept." Haith's mixes and packages almost all of the bird food products it sells, sourcing raw materials from across the world. Its peanuts, for example, come mainly from China, while millet is obtained from the USA, China, Russia and France.
"Millet was very, very scarce last year as a result of poor weather in Russia," said managing director David Haith, grandson of the company's founder. "Last year the quantity was down and the quality poor, hence the severe shortages."

Haith's black sunflower seeds come from France, although some canary seed is also grown in England. "Some people are even trying to produce home-grown black sunflower seed, but it's still
in its infancy. I think it's a bit difficult to get it fully ripe," says David. At any given time, Haith's has 900 tonnes of raw materials in its factory. Each year, the company sells around 2,000 tonnes of avicultural food and some 3,000 tonnes of wild bird food. "The cage and aviary market is fairly static, whereas the wild bird market is constantly growing. In the mid 1960s we supplied quite a bit of corn and seed mixes for racing pigeons, but that market has decreased dramatically," says David.

Among the items on Haith's cage and aviarylist are nine different millet products, eight budgerigar mixes, 12 canary and British bird mixes, 14 foreign bird mixes, 24 plain feeding products, 11 canary seeds and colour foods and seven softfoods. The company, which supplies zoos, pet shops and individual breeders, also stocks 21 seed products, including niger, blue maw, lettuce, perilla, quinoa, chilli and white pumpkin. Simon tells me that award-winning breeder Bernard Howlett had tried Haith's new Delecto and Delecto 30 softfoods on his birds.

"Bernard, who won the supreme award with one of his tanagers, used to give speeches about how he spent Saturday afternoons making his own softfoods. I talked him into trying our two new Delecto products. As a result, he no longer makes his own softfoods; he buys Delecto instead."

Delecto is a low-iron product, and thus ideal for birds suffering from iron storage disease, while Delecto 30 contains 30 per cent dried flies. Simon believes that ornithology and aviculture should learn from each other, especially where nutrition is concerned.

"Bill addie, with whom we work closely, believes that one of the reasons for the decline of certain garden birds is that there is not enough food available for chicks in spring and summer.

"We can help adult birds get the energy they need by putting out peanuts and other foods, but that doesn't help fledglings. "Perhaps the mortality rate of chicks could be reduced by providing them with specialist avicultural softbill foods, given the success Bernard had last year in feeding Delecto and Delecto 30 not only to his own tana,ger chicks but also canaries."

When it comes to non-live bird food,    clearly there is something to suit every taste and pocket.
Bartholomews Ltd of Portfield, Chichester, produces Avian Specific foods and supplements for specialist bird breeders and other serious aviculturists. There are 22 products in this range, which was formulated by company employee and bird enthusiast Steve Beaver in conjunction with a group of breeders.

Among them is a medium-high oil, medium high protein and low-medium carbohydrate product mix ideal for African grey parrots and most large macaws.

There is a low oil, high protein and high carbohydrate mix for small to medium parakeets, rosellas, small lovebirds and such like; and a 'highly palatable and waste-free' product that meets the dietary requirements of wax bills and manikins.

"Bartholomews started off in 1898 as an agricultural seed company," says birdseed manager Alexis Fennell. "It then diversified by moving into the pet industry. We source all our own raw materials and blend everything in-house."

For breeders who want to mix their own foods, Bartholomews stocks 100 different straight seeds, fruits and vegetables, among which are groats, diced pineapple, dried elder berries, whole rosehips, cedar nuts, hemp, white perilla and hulled pumpkin seed. The company also makes a traditional range of 13 bird foods aimed at pet shops.

Ernest Charles of Copplestone, Crediton sells a wide range of food for both wild and captive birds.
The company's on-line 'aviary menu' includes Parrot Elite, which has 17 ingredients - 48 per cent of the content is sunflower seed; Budgie Banquet, a blend of canary, white and red millet, groats, hemp, safflower and niger seed; Australian Finch Mixture and Pigeon Maintenance, 40 per cent tic beans, 30 per cent wheat, 20 per cent whole maize and red dari. Among the 'straights and seeds' available
online are Chinese millet sprays, egg biscuit, Bogena softbill food, black and red rape, Chinese pine nuts and pinhead oatmeal. Said to contain "the finest quality ingredients", including egg yolk, EMP Superior Soft Egg Food is the well-known specialist food made by Rotherham-based EMP. It contains everything essential needed for "successful rearing, moulting, conditioning and general good health".

EMP has been produced by Donald Cooke, a pet food wholesaler, since the late 1980s. "As far as we can tell from all the surveys, EMP is the most well-known and most used brand of eggfood in the UK," says Bill Cooke, son of Donald, who now owns and runs the company. "We produce a lot considering it's not a product that aviculturists use in massive quantities. It probably forms only about 20 per cent of a bird's diet." Donald Cooke sells EMP through a nationwide chain of more than 1,000 wholesalers and retailers. "In the early days we distributed a lot through mail order, but since then the costs of distributing by mail order have risen very considerably. "Given that we now have an excellent network of stockists, we no longer sell much EMP through mail order." EMP also sells birdseed, pigeon corn and various other animal foods.

_{source Bird Keeper Mag.}